RECIPE: #63 Hey, You Made It (Vienna Lager)

Lagers.  It is a love hate relationship.  I used to hate them.  Then I made a couple, and they turned out very well, even taking home some medals.  They tend to go through stages.  At first they are meh, it's clean and wet.  Then they peak and you realize you don't have much left.  Then it either dissapears in the middle of its glory like my Pilsner, or I hold onto it long enough that it shows age and becomes nothing but a bland cooking medium at best like my CAP from last Summer.  They are not my favorite styles of beer, and I would much rather drink a Saison, Wit, German Hefe, or Sour on a hot Summer night over a Pils, but there is still something beautiful about a perfectly brewed and poured lager.  As I stated at the beginning of the year, I am out to win competitions this year, including Club Only Comps for our brew club.  The 4 medals and Best of Show in February set me on the course for accomplishing this, but I still need to get in on our COC comps.  The next one is lagers, so I wanted to get at least one beer in there.

RECIPE: 1st Place APA #64 Tropic Thunder (Vienna, Amarillo, Simcoe, Brett Trios APA)

When I put together my recipe for my Vienna Lager I had to split the mash up for something else.  I thought about it and toasty malts, 1.048 OG, sounds like a great canvas for an American Pale.  Add to this that I wanted a Pale to enter into the Sasquatch homebrew comp, and I had already blown my keg of IPA with the Black IPA headed to the same demise, I needed a hop bomb.  Stephen had done a lot of work to clean up an infected pitch of Conan I had, and I had planned to use it to ferment this batch.  Low and behold I didn't ask for it soon enough and didn't have time to get it built up in time.  I thought about using the pitch of 1469 I still had from the IPA, since it has a lot of peach notes too, but decided against it.  I made that decision because I had 6 strains of Brett built up for the Saison, and have heard very good results from others about Brett Trois and hoppy beers.  I had only done one other Brett and Hops beer and didn't care for some my hop choices.  I really wanted to do one again, so why not now.

Review: BANGARANG: Rufio (Imperial West Coast Red)

When I developed the recipe for this beer I was shooting for a deep red, bold, hoppy, malty, dry, yet balanced West Coast Red.  Big, flavorful, aromatic, dank, woody, fruity, sticky.  On almost all cylinders I got what I had hoped for.  The color (as with all of my reds) is too amber, not actually RED.  Other than that adjustment, the beer turned out great.  The Vienna base with Munich worked really well to give the beer a nice depth in the malt backbone that balances out the 112 IBUs, low FG, and higher alcohol.  Definitely a repeat recipe with a color tweek.

Look:

Pours a murky copper / amber with a thick and sticky tan head.  Head lasts for quite a while and eventually drops to a thick cap that persists all the way through the glass, leaving sticky lace througout.

Aroma:

Hops jump off the glass with grapefruit leading the charge followed by berries, resin, sticky hops, alcohol, and rounds out with a earthy/woody finish.  Malt is low.  Was hoping for more pine with the Simcoe and Chinook.

Taste:

The taste follows the nose, lots of hoppy goodness, grapefruit, resin, pine, spicy alcohol, fruity.  There is an undefined malty backbone to support it all.  Touch of tropics in the background.  Again, low pine which is what I was hoping for.

Mouthfeel:

For the low FG this beer actually has a fairly medium body, creamy, bitterness presents in the finish, but doesn't assault the mouth leaving it dead to all the flavor.  The alcohol warms the throat, but isn't hot at all.  Dry finish leaves you wanting another gulp.

Overall:

Well balanced hop bomb.  There are lots of hops, complexity, good malt backbone to support the hops and bitterness, no raisins or plums which is typical of the style, but I am okay with that since I really don't like the flavor and aroma of dark fruits messing with my hops (the reason the recipe doesn't contain any crystal malts).  Alcohol is evident but no fusels.  Very balanced beer.  Color is too light, needs adjusting to get to the RED I am hoping for.  Might try to tweek the hops a little next go round to up the pine.